Terry’s Chocolate Orange Cake!
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A three-layer chocolate orange cake with Terry’s chocolate orange buttercream frosting!
Terrys chocolate orange cake
So… this beauty HAS HAPPENED. Yes, that’s right… this is a DELICIOUS three-layer moist and scrumptious chocolate and orange cake, with Terry’s chocolate orange buttercream frosting sandwiched between. Basically, my idea of heaven in a cake. Every bite is the most delicious thing I can imagine.
Recipe inspiration
This does basically look like a carbon copy of my Nutella cake, my lemon & blueberry cake, my neapolitan cake and so on… let’s just say that my style of decorating has changed this year and I love the ‘buttercream poop’ style as my roommate says. I say little round dollops or similar, but he says poops. Either way, I think it looks very satisfying.
The sponges for this beauty are a chocolate Victoria sponge style, with a little more cocoa powder in comparison to other chocolate cakes on my blog because I wanted it to be a really deep flavour. This deep flavour contrasts SO well with the orange zest and makes it such a wonderful flavour! Orange extract is a good alternative if you don’t want to use fresh oranges, use two teaspoons worth!
Buttercream
The Terry’s chocolate orange buttercream is a bit of an odd one because its utterly delightful, but can be damn difficult to make sometimes. If you use a milk Terry’s chocolate orange, it can work, but it’s much more likely to split in comparison to the dark Terry’s. The thing about using the dark Terry’s is by the time you’ve put it in the buttercream, it tastes like you’ve used the milk Terry’s anyway!
I would completely and wholeheartedly recommend using the DARK Terry’s chocolate orange, or use plain dark chocolate orange and a good quality orange extract. For all those people who are going to whine and moan that they don’t like dark chocolate… give me a break. Trust me, it tastes AMAZING once in the buttercream frosting.
I am obsessed!
Recently, as most people in the UK will know, Tesco was doing a sale on Terry’s chocolate orange at 75p each which is practically unheard of… so I invested in quite a few. TWENTY FIVE of the beauties to be precise, but as I say, it was an investment. I figured as its coming up to Christmas, I would get through a fair few of them!
More recipes
I do have FIFTEEN or so Terry’s chocolate orange recipes on here already, which might seem a smidge over the top. However, my Terry’s chocolate orange cheesecake, my Terry’s chocolate orange cookies, and my Terry’s chocolate orange tart are genuinely all some of my favourites. All in the top ten recipes on my blog!
Chocolate orange heaven!
I would say that maybe the photos on this page aren’t my favourites, but you can see the pure Terry’s chocolate orange joy in the photos with the insane amount of segments on top. I realise having 21 segments on top of a cake is a bit much, but I thought it made it look funky! Plus, more than one segment per slice then.
I love this cake best on the day its made, but later on, its nice to microwave a slice for 10-15 seconds and have it slightly warm. Or, to keep it fresh and moist for longer, you can even add an orange drizzle on top! Use the juice of 2 oranges, and 75g of caster sugar mixed together and drizzled between the three sponges!
Terry's Chocolate Orange Cake!
Ingredients
For the Cake!
- 400 g unsalted butter
- 400 g light brown sugar
- 325 g self raising flour
- 75 g cocoa powder
- 8 medium eggs
- Zest of 2 oranges
For the Frosting!
- 350 g unsalted butter (not stork)
- 700 g icing sugar
- 250 g DARK Terry's chocolate orange
For the Decoration!
- Terry's chocolate orange
- Sprinkles
Instructions
For the Cake!
- Preheat your oven to 180C/160C Fan, and line three 8"/20cm cake tins with parchment paper. Leave to the side for now!
- Beat your butter and sugar together until light and fluffy!
- Add in the flour, cocoa powder, eggs, and orange zest and beat until smooth!
- Split evenly between the three tins, and bake in the oven for 25-30 minutes.
- Check its cooked by using a skewer, it should be clean! Leave to cool in the tins for 10 minutes, and then on a wire rack to cool fully.
For the Frosting!
- Make sure your unsalted butter is at room temperature.
- Beat the butter until its smooth and supple, and gradually add in your icing sugar.
- Whilst doing this, melt your DARK Terry's chocolate orange carefully until smooth!
- Beat the butter and icing sugar for a few minutes until its really lovely and smooth.
- Add in your melted dark Terry's chocolate orange and beat again. If the mix is a bit hard, or way too thick, add in 1-2tbsp of boiling water. Don't do this straight away, make sure you beat the buttercream first as it might not need it.
- Once all together, don't beat for too long or it might split.
For the Decoration!
- Get your first layer of cake, and pipe little dollops of buttercream onto it. I do this with a large round nozzle, piping directly downwards!
- Do this all over, and then add the second layer, and repeat. Add the third layer of cake, and pipe the rest of the buttercream on top! I do it all over, then add another ring to sandwich the slices between.
- I put 21 segments on top and alternated two milk chocolate slices and one dark chocolate slice all the way around to use up the rest of the second dark Terry's chocolate orange, but you can do what you want.
- Sprinkle over your fave sprinkles, and enjoy!
Notes
- The dark Terry's chocolate orange is much better to use for the buttercream compared to the milk!
- As mentioned in my Terry's chocolate orange cupcakes, normal milk Terry's is more likely to split in buttercream.
- If you can't find dark chocolate orange, use 250g of dark chocolate and 2tsp orange extract instead!
- Decoration wise, you can use milk, or dark, or anything else chocolate orange themed like Lindt!
- You can make a smaller version of this cake using
- 300g butter, 300g sugar, 250g self flour, 50g cocoa powder, 6 medium eggs and baking for 30-35 minutes in to 8"tins.
- This cake will last for 3 days at room temperature!
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J x
© Jane’s Patisserie. All images & content are copyright protected. Do not use my images without prior permission. If you want to republish this recipe, please re-write the recipe in your own words and credit me, or link back to this post for the recipe.
Hi Jane,
I wanted to make this cake exactly as it is but eggless, how would I amend the recipe?
I wouldn’t recommend it – I would follow my vegan sponge recipe x
Hi Jane I was just wondering why this recipe doesn’t have baking powder like
All your other cake recipes
All of my recipes are written how I have made them at that time and show different examples of how you can bake a cake – not all of my cakes use baking powder x
Lovely cake made it this weekend. I wonder if anyone else had problems with the frosting. When I put it in the piping bag it was very oily. Do you think my chocolate was not cool enough? Didnt make any difference to the taste. Thanks for all your wonderful recipes xx
That means it’s split – you can sometimes bring it back by adding in a little boiled water or whole milk when mixing xx
Hi Jane! I’m planning on making this cake for my partners birthday, is it possible to make it as a 4 layer cake ? If so how much more extra ingredients would I need for the cake?
Also another question I have is if I can make this as a 4 layer cake, how much more cream/chocolate will I need to cover the cake in ganache ? X
I would use a 500g mix, split between two tins and baked for longer or four tins – use 500g sugar/eggs/butter and 400g flour, 100g cocoa. And this one doesn’t have a ganache covering so you need to look at a different recipe for that x
Hi Jane
Instead of using stork butter which other brand of butter works best for cakes?
For cake sponges I only ever use stork, or block unsalted butter x
Hi Jane!
What type of nozzle do you use for the buttercream frosting to make the ‘poops’ so perfect? 🤣
Thanks x
Just a round nozzle, or just snip the end off a disposable piping bag!
Hi,
Loved this recipe 😋
I would like to try this using white chocolate orange, what would u recommend?
So the best frosting definitely comes from using the dark terry’s as mentioned – but it should still work okay! You may need less though so about 175-200g x
Hi Jane,
I wanted to make this cake using 6” tins so it’s not as big but still keeping 3 layers. What would you reduce the recipe and cooking time down by?
Thanks!
A 6″ cake is roughly 2/3 of the recipe, but I’m unsure on the baking times – maybe check at about 20 minutes?!
Hi Jane. I plan to make this cake for my daughters birthday party – a week today! Think it will go down well with both adults and children. But I wanted to cover it in white fondant. Would you recommend a vanilla buttercream under the fondant? I just don’t want the chcolate showing through until we cut into it! Thank you.
If you don’t want to see chocolate buttercream between the cake and fondant then definitely use a different one x
Hi Jane. I’m planning on baking this cake this week but I can’t find Dark Terry’s Chocolate Orange in any of the shops. Would the buttercream work if I used dark chocolate orange Lindy instead?
Xxx
Yes that should work well! x
hi, could you use the sponge recipe for a full 9 inch cake?
That should be okay!
Yet another great recipe! I’ve made quite a few of your recipes in lock down and they are all so so nice. I made this two tier cause I didn’t want to go as big, but again I couldn’t stop eating it. Also made the syrup to moisten the sponges and this made it extra moist and delish!! Love chocolate cake, and this is one of the best I’ve tasted.
Hi Jane,
I was wondering what your thoughts are on using oil instead of butter to get a really moist chocolate cake mine have a tendency to be dry and I tried a recipe with oil a while ago and it worked great and didn’t dry out in the fridge but really want to try out this recipe for my dad’s 70th (the drip version in your ebook) but don’t want to ruin it swapping in oil if you think it won’t work?
Look forward to your thoughts and love your recipes!
Many thanks x
I tend to find dry cakes are purely from over baking – and chocolate cakes often just bake a smidge quicker! You could try oil, but for this sort of sponge I don’t usually do that so I have never tried it! Typically I believe you use 3/4 of the amount of butter in oil! xx
hiya jane! this might be a silly question… but do i need to wait for the chocolate to cool before adding to the buttercream? and can i use caster sugar if its the only type i have? thankyou!
Hiya – yes you will want the chocolate cooled somewhat! And I wouldn’t use caster for buttercream – that can be quite unpleasant! x
Hiii, how much orange extract would you recommend using if I was making this as a two tier cake rather than a three? 🙂 x
Could I use orange extract instead of orange zest and if so how much would you recommend please?
Thanks
Yes for sure! I usually use 1.5tsps for my ideal taste!